16: Rude Awakenings
Previously on And When Two Villains Woo, Sam Superlative Jr. has been forcibly rescued from government custody by his father, Samuel J. Superlative! Meanwhile, Candystriper and the Malevolent Med-Student have gone to bed in their respective quarters in their hideout, having celebrated Candystriper’s apparently successful shootdown of Captain Happily Married! Which is a lot! But first, a commercial word!
When Sam Superlative Jr woke up, he expected to find himself either behind the gray walls of the Penitentiary for Enhanced-Risk Persons or, hopefully, at home in his own room and in his own bed, relieved that it was all a dream. He was more than a bit surprised to wake up neither in the P.E.R.P nor at home, but on the concrete floor of an abandoned warehouse. “Wha-?” he said.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he heard the voice of someone who sounded a lot like his father say. “Starting to worry, y’know?”
Sam blinked. He hadn’t had all that many heart-to-heart conversations with his father of late, but he had never heard Mr. Superlative, in all his life, say “y’know?”.
“Hey-” he said, but his father cut him off. “Don’t worry, dude, okay? Help’s on the way.”
Now he knew. Like many dads Mr. Superlative occasionally said “bud”, “pal”, or “buddy”, once in a while, but he had never said dude. Sam Superlative Jr. bounded up, eyes blazing red. “Okay,” he said, “Who are you, really?”
“Oh, shoot,” Mr. Superlative said, and without warning he changed into an entirely different person altogether, a dirty-haired woman in an old red uniform that had seen better days.
“It’s this new power-mimicry deal,” she explained, gesturing at a beeping device on her wrist. “You get so used to it, you forget to rely on basic shifter’s instinct. I used to be better at this. Well, what can you do?”
She shrugged and started to walk away. “Hey,” Sam Superlative Jr. said. “Hey!”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, pausing. “Sorry. Introductions. Scarlet Shapeshifter. Used to be on your side. Now it’s whoever pays. And honestly, I hate to say it, but the Prof pays well. She really does.”
“The-” Sam began, but then the door of the warehouse banged open.
"This is true,” the new arrival said, “One must spend to achieve results. Which I have done.” She raised a device that looked like a very large gun with a lot of unnecessary bits stuck on and aimed directly at Sam Superlative.
“Hello,” she said. “Professor Irreconcilable Differences. I trust you have heard of the Kaboominator.”
The Malevolent Med-Student awoke in the middle of the night, as he sometimes did, and found himself needing to use the mad scientist’s room. He rolled out of his bed and staggered off in that direction, grumbling about the infirmities of human anatomy, things he would one day correct given enough technology and proper study. He was surprised to find it already occupied, since Candystriper had her own separate bathroom in her quarters.
Normal people would knock on the door; the Malevolent Med-Student drew his Pharma-Death Beam and fired. The beam punched a hole in the door and exploded off of something inside. He flung the door open, expecting to find someone writhing in agony on the tiled floor. What he did not expect was John Cute standing beside his shattered toilet.
“You’re gonna need that fixed,” John said, before punching the Malevolent Med-Student so hard he sent him flying across the hideout.
“HEY!” Candystriper shouted. She’d heard the commotion and now came running up with her Death Kazoos.
John Cute didn’t even smile. “Guess what, babe. Those don’t work on me either.” He grabbed the bathroom door with the hole blasted in it, ripped it off its hinges, and swatted Candystriper away with it as if he were batting away an annoying mosquito. The door smashed into splinters. Candystriper soared in an arc across the hideout and crumpled to the floor.
“You might want to put in a call to the Henchmens’ Union too,” John Cute said. “After you recover.” He grabbed the Malevolent Med-Student and slammed him up against the wall.
“Now,” he said, still utterly calm, “Where’s my thrudanium?”
Meanwhile, Captain Happily Married was just getting up from where he’d been lying unconscious by a tree. “Ow!” he said emphatically. Then he realized there was no one around to hear him. “Good heavens!” he said. “How long was I rendered unconscious?”
His phone buzzed with the latest in a frantic series of texts and alerts from Super Soccer Mom who, given recent events, was increasingly concerned over his welfare. Captain Happily Married dashed off a note to see that he was Absolutely Fine, Nothing to See Here, and then he rose into the sky. He had been momentarily downed by Candystriper with a robot arm. Why had she done that? Where had she gotten a robot arm from? Where was the Malevolent Med-Student?
“Something’s going on in my city,” he rumbled, “and I do not like it!” With that, Captain Happily Married soared heroically away into the night sky.
Poor Candystriper! 😰